


Behind The Visor

by Scia08



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24975592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scia08/pseuds/Scia08
Summary: What starts out as a break between assignments for supplementary training, throws Ferret Team into direct fire.
Relationships: Frederic-104 & Veta Lopis, Frederic-104/Veta Lopis, Gamma Company & Veta Lopis
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	1. It’s not really that complicated.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback welcome. Only a vague idea where this is going right now, not gonna lie.

Veta was shifting uncomfortably as the techs worked on her, the new set of SPI armor unfamiliar though lighter than what she was expecting.

The Spartan-IIIs had already suited up via the rig, a rather imposing piece of machinery that extended up into the bulkhead, and were currently running diagnostics checks over their TEAMCOMM. As she slid on her new helmet, she could hear them chattering over the differences in a software update to HUD.

“-and speaker recalibration?” Olivia queried, “I can’t remember the last time that happened.” Olivia turned her head to Mark, “Try talking, I wanna know if it makes you sound like you’ve gone through puberty.”

“I don’t think a simple recalibration would help with that.” Ash chuckled and Veta could imagine the grin he was sporting under his helmet.

Mark jerked his head in Veta’s direction, shoulders relaxing ever so slightly, “Oh look, Mom’s up and running.”

“He doesn’t sound different at all.” Olivia lamented to Ash, who replied with a solemn nod.

“It’s almost worst.” He agreed.

Her ferrets had turned to look in her direction and she smiled at them, forgetting for a moment that they could not see her face through her visor. “This has a better range of motion than the old kit they’ve had me in.” She rolled her shoulders to accentuate her point. Her old armor, designed for maintenance work in hard vacuum, had had locking joints, which was not suitable for her line of work. Mark and Olivia had already begun flashing different status lights in her HUD, presumably testing the system so she flashed a green one back.

“The technicians said they had to replace the reactive gel layer, since you don’t have the bone grafts that we do, but it should hold up better.” Ash was giving her armor a once over, checking the seals and making sure she was securely in there.

“We’re gonna be late to Zero-G training if we don’t double time it, mom.” Olivia’s voice came over the comm, and Veta was suddenly reminded of what Osman had said if they kept up their track record of being late to training.

“Double time it is then, move out.” They moved for the door at her words and broke into a brisk jog, leaving her to follow behind them.

The jog ended up turning into a run when they discovered that the elevator was down for maintenance, so when they arrived at the Zero-G facility’s entrance, Veta was surprised to see that they were exactly on schedule. The team had automatically began to gather up the practice weaponry whilst the training supervisor began their debrief for mission expectations and goals.

“You know, Mom,” Ash began in a teasing tone, “we were supposed to be practicing stealth moves.”

“Yeah,” Mark pitched in, his helmet removed so she could see the mischievous glint in his eyes “and if that’s what stealth is on Goa, I don’t think we had to worry about those jump troopers as much as we did.”

She gave them a mock glare from the bench she was lying on whilst recovering from whatever the hell sort of motion sickness you got from Zero-G. “You have free time until 2100. Ash, don’t forget to redo your last physics module, it was rushed.” Just like that, they dispersed, and she could hear Olivia chattering about how she wanted to tinker with the shield generators on her suit to see if she could get any extra juice from them. Veta made a mental note to warn the armor techs of this. Speaking of armor techs, they would want a detailed report of how the armor handled so they could calibrate it accordingly. Not to mention, Osman would be waiting for her end of week training report and she really had to write that up before her ferrets wound up at her door at 2100.

She let out a groan, her head and stomach still in that uncomfortable light weight stage, before getting up.

“It’s not really that complicated.” A familiar male voice sounded somewhere off to her right.

Veta started, she hadn’t realized that she wasn’t alone. Her shock turned into an almost pleasant form of surprise when she realized who had spoken.

“I thought we talked about you not sneaking up on me.” Her head swiveled to see Fred-104 leaning against the lockers almost casually. He made a brief second of eye contact with her and she could have sworn she saw the corner of his mouth twitch before he turned.

“If you’re up for it, I could help you with your technique.”

She considered it briefly, at the rate she was going, there was the potential that she would be slowing her team down and she really wanted to send Osman a report that showed her progressing as well as the Spartan-IIIs under her command. On the other hand, however, “What is it you’re doing here exactly?”

“That’s classified.” He was making eye contact with her again and she knew without a doubt that he was smirking at her. She narrowed her eyes at him, which made his smirk broaden slightly. “We’ll meet up tomorrow after your team is done here.” His tone left no room for argument, not that she was going to argue with him this time, she really needed all the help she could get.

“Yes sir, Lieutenant.” She replied, unable to recall when she started smiling back at him, only aware that her face was beginning to hurt from it.

“I see you got a suit upgrade, Inspector,” Fred shifted his weight off of the lockers, clearly getting ready to leave, “try not to need the extra shielding.” Veta watched him leave, her eyes snapping away from his retreating figure when he glanced back over his shoulder at her.


	2. I’ll close the door

Five minutes before 2100, her Spartan-IIIs were barging into their bunk room, Ash’s slightly longer than regulation length hair was dripping water onto the shoulders of his fatigues. Mark was holding a tablet in one hand and gesturing with a ration bar in his other, Olivia and Ash intently listening to the formula he was explaining.

“I hope you haven’t been doing Ash’s homework for him, Mark.” Veta spoke up, closing the screen of her laptop.

“Never, Mom,” Mark replied, flipping the tablet around so she could see it, “just crowd sourcing feedback on the last problem.” She reviewed it briefly before nodding.

“Guess we’ll know if it’s correct once the lieutenant reviews it.” She said casually, the Spartan-IIIs froze, all eyes suddenly on her. Mark and Olivia looked towards Ash, trying to gauge who should ask before bombarding her with questions.

“Is he back from his last mission then?” It came from Ash, and he lowered the towel from his head to look her in the eye.

“Blue Team is on this station until their next assignment,” She began to explain, the sudden excitement in the room palpable, “and that is not to interfere with your training schedule, understood?” They looked at her, feigning dejected looks. “They are, however, in the bunk room down the hall and I’m certain they’ll be happy to see you. Just submit your latest assignments so I can look over them.”

There was a sudden scramble and three tablets were on the desk in front of her and the ferrets were out of the room. She chuckled to herself, pulling up the answer key on her laptop. Once these were done, she reasoned with herself, she could go to bed.

Ash’s homework had been redone correctly, she could see in the margins where Mark had helped him work through the more complex calculations by correcting his formulas. Olivia has submitted a rather comprehensive essay on upper atmospheric weather distortion and how it could effect low orbit drops. She had scrawled out a formula in support of her information in a line break, a decidedly odd thing to do when the rest of her paper had been typed but she let it slide.

A knock on the cabin door made her turn, the IIIs wouldn’t have knocked, considering the four of them shared the bunk room. She realized that in their haste they had left the cabin door open and now Fred was standing in the doorway. He was wearing loose fitting exercise pants and a shirt emblazoned with ‘S-104’ on the left breast. Only when her eyes travelled up to his face did she realize that she had been checking him out. His ears were slightly pink and he was staring at a point on the wall above her head.

“Lieutenant,” Veta started, trying for a tone that did not sound like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, “what brings you here this,” she paused, glancing down to check the time on her watch, “evening?”

“I, uh, just got back from a run and Ash mentioned that you had their latest modules for me to review?” He still wasn’t looking at her, anywhere but her in fact, but his face changed when he saw space in the wall in between the bunk hollows. He moved forward slowly, as if waiting for her to object to his entry. She knew what caught his eye and didn’t stop him.

Veta had gotten her hands on a real camera shortly after ferret training began and, after she explained to the her team what she was doing, they had been all for it. The wall space between the four bunk hollows was covered in small, evenly spaced and sized photos from their time together.

Fred was understandably speechless. As the years passed, photography was something for evidence collection or for recon purposes solely, not for fleeting moments to be remembered. He focused on one where Ash and Mark were smiling next to Veta, each with an arm around her, and Olivia’s face squished into the foreground. Her face was slightly blurry but it made him grin.

“I didn’t realize how much they would actually enjoy taking pictures,” Veta spoke, breaking the silence, “now, I have to filter their random photos from the crime scene shots.” Fred remained silent, though his smile stayed as he looked at all the frozen memories. “Olivia found some magnetic tape, so we can take them down when we get reassigned.” Fred nodded absently, realizing that there were pictures inside the bunks themselves. He ducked his head to peer into the closest bunk.

“Oh, uh,” Veta started, her hands reflexively moving to grab his arm, to stop him, before actively stopping herself, remembering that Spartans weren’t used to random physical contact, “that’s my bunk.” It was too late though. He was leaning slightly on the mattress, looking at the photos she liked so much they were the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night. There weren’t many, five or so, all but one featuring some combination of Mark, Olivia, and Ash.

At this point, she had crouched down too, looking at them fondly. Fred realized that the last photo was of them, them being him and Veta, in a hanger bay and from their body language, he could tell that they had been arguing. It was one of those rare times where he had been suited up but with his helmet removed making his slight smirk visible.

“They wrote on the back of it.” It was short, matter of fact, and intriguing. Fred moved to remove the photo from the wall.

“Arguing about who gets to ride on top next. Colorized.” If his ears had been pink before, they were burning red now, along with the rest of his face. “I, uh, did not, um-”

Veta had never seen a Spartan at a loss for words before, and smiled, taking the photo from him and putting it back up. “Maybe stop giving them messages for me.” She chuckled, standing up, careful not to slam the back of her head on the top of her bunk. She cleared her throat, “Anyways, I reviewed their homework, it seems sound, although I’ll need someone that actually knows the math to verify their formulas.

By this point, Fred was standing, accepting the tablets she was now offering him.

“I shall get them back to you ASAP, Inspector.” Fred made a move for the door.

“You know, Fred,” He stopped instantly, looking back at her, “I’m not an Inspector anymore.”

She was sitting on the corner of the desk, arms crossed over her chest, one side of her mouth lifted in a smile. His eyes lingered for a second on her smile before finally making eye contact with her.

“I am well aware, Veta.” Her smile faltered for the briefest second, “I’ll close the door behind me.” With that, he left.

Veta remained where she was for a minute before shaking her head, as if to clear it, and moving to her bunk. She had done what she said she would and now she would rest. She had earned it.


	3. Chapter 3

Veta woke with a start, unable to remember what she had been dreaming about nor what had woken her up. She could hear Olivia grumbling something in her sleep, and Mark was snoring.

_Could that be what woke me up?_ She laid her head back down, settled into her mattress more comfortably and was halfway back to sleep, very secure in her belief that it was not yet the end of third shift when there was a bang on the door and Veta realized that that was what had woken her up.

With how tired her Spartans were right now, she knew they would not wake up for anything less than the station’s emergency alarm. She laid there, contemplating the chances that whoever was at the door would leave so she could go back to sleep, until her tablet emitted a chirp. Figuring it was whoever was at the door, Veta threw back her light covers, and crossed the room to let them in.

Fred-104 was in full armor, his head tilted back slightly like he was reading something on his Heads-Up Display. The sight woke her up faster than her morning coffee.

“Is something wrong? Do I need to wake them up?” She was reaching for the room’s light switch.

Fred tilted his head down to look at her before immediately looking down the hall, and she looked down the hall for whatever caught his attention before looking down and realizing that she was wearing a long shirt with no pants. He was averting his eyes out of respect and her hand went down to tug at the hem.

“No need to wake them up,” He coughed once to clear his throat, “just you and me. Get ready, we need to get you suited up quickly.” She stood there, her arms now crossed.

“Why?” His helmet angled back to her and before he could say anything, she said, “And you better not say its classified.”

His head dipped slightly as he removed his helmet. “There is no one scheduled to use the Zero-G training environment until halfway through first shift and then its booked the rest of the day, so we need to get you suited up.” She blinked slowly.

“You want to do Zero-G training now.” It took her a minute to process the information. “Instead of sleeping.”

“No time like the present, come on, the rig is prepping your armor and the night tech is standing by.” He gestured with his head, turning his body slightly. Veta could tell that he was not going to let her go back to bed peacefully.

“Pants first.” She stepped back, hitting the close on the door control panel. It took her a second to find pants that were actually hers and put them on in the dark. She disregarded shoes, knowing that she would have to take them off again in the armor bay.

“No chance of you letting me go back to sleep, is there?” She asked him once she was back in the hall, following him towards the armor bay.

“Do you think you could fall back asleep now?” He looked down at her.

“Probably not.” She sighed, wondering if this was his plan from the get go.

The armor tech had shooed Fred out of the room when they arrived and, once in the under-suit boots, had her step onto the rig platform. She had then been told to position her arms and legs in a certain manner and to not move them, no matter how much she wanted too. Before she could really even process what was happening, mechanical arms came descending down and her shin armor pieces slammed together. She heard the whir of a drill gun and the arms retreated a moment later. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in only to suck it back in as her knee and thigh armor were bolted into place.

The rapid fire building of her armor around her made her feel like she was being buried alive, only compounding when her helmet was placed, so loudly yet so gently, she hardly believed that the rig was capable of it. She ripped her helmet off if her head, taking a deep breath to calm herself. The tech stood up quickly, concern on her features before Veta waved her off.

The doors slid open and Fred stepped inside. Veta gave a quick thank you to the tech before walking over to him. He immediately began giving her a once over, checking to make sure her seals were properly closed and her armor was set right. She knew that this was something they all did for each other, Olivia had even shown her how to do it so that she could return the favor. So when Fred stepped back from her, that was what she did.

Her eyes traveled over each of his joints, ran her hand over the port at the inner elbow, and gave a slight nod of approval. She flashed him a green light, there was a slight motion of his helmet and he flashed her back a green light.

“Come on,” He upper body moved with his head gesture, tilting towards the door, “we have work to do.” She smiled, forgetting he couldn’t see her face and moving with him towards the training grounds.

“Hey!” Fred had to stretch to grab her arm to pull her back down to the surface.

Veta had already started flailing in a failed attempt to regain her position next to him. Once her boots touched back down to the metal surface they magnetized again, locking her into place.

“Thank you,” She smiled at him, noticing him hand was still on her arm, “I’m still getting the hang of these eye gestures.”

“Do I need to assign you homework too?” She could hear his smile in his voice.

“Don’t you dare,” She glared up at him, shooing away his hand. “Now, what are we doing in here?”

“We are running an obstacle course of sorts,” He nodded around the room to the various floating metal panels. “This simulates a ship wreckage that you have to navigate through. Do you remember everything we discussed?” She took a moment, reflecting on the talk they were having on a few minutes prior. This station was apparently a secondary training facility for Zero-G, so the instructors were only trained to develop skills that were already there. Skills that Veta did not have.

“Yes. I think that stopping on target has presented,” she paused for a moment, trying to find the descriptor, “the most _difficulties_.” He nodded, wondering for a moment what else she would consider a difficulty, she certainly wasn’t intimidated easily.

“You really have to under use them. Nothing is going to stop you in here and if your trajectory is even a little off, you’ll go sailing past your objective.” He gestured for her to move up next to him so she could see the full room. He sent her over a data packet of his drafted course. “This will overlay on your HUD and give you some direction on how to get to your destination.”

“And what is my destination?” She looked over towards him expectantly.

“You get to go back to sleep.”

“Consider it illegal to wake me up again.”

“Yes ma’am.” Fred heard the softest laugh come across his TEAMCOMM. He handed her a battle rifle, loaded with training rounds. “Once you get a hang of the thrusters, I’ll turn on the practice drones.” With that he jumped into the air, boots demagnetizing and jump boosters coming to life. “I’ll be on over watch.” He gestured to the monitoring platform towards the top of the environment.

“Wait, but what about,” She let her voice trail off, he was already gone. Having to navigate this kind of environment was very unfamiliar, shooting while doing this seemed overkill for her first training session with him.

_Alright, Veta,_ she coached herself, _no time like the present._ She pushed off, her grip tightening around her battle rifle. Her HUD lit up with a vague blue trail that was actively reacting and adjusting to her movements to stay lined up with the denoted path. She remembered what Fred had said about her boosters and gave a small tap on her directly rear boosters, sending her towards the nearest debris piece in the field. As she neared it, she stuck out one boot, magnetizing it as it neared the center of the salvage and stuck to it, pulling herself down into a crouch. She looked around for the blue trail in her HUD and saw her path took her directly upwards. She moved forward cautiously.

“You do need to be moving a bit faster, Inspector,” Fred’s voice sounded off in her helmet, “I am timing you.”

She swore under her breath and flashed him an amber light twice to express her frustration without yelling.

“I hope you aren’t teaching the gammas any bad words.” His comment sounded so off hand that she chuckled despite herself, angling her head up towards where he was positioned.

“Everything they’ve gone through and you’re worried about them learning _bad words._ ”

“The timer is still going, Inspector.”

She swore again, this time louder, to make her point for her.

Bracing herself against the edge of the metal sheet she was currently on, she demagnetized her boot and pushed off towards the next panel with just her hands. Another small puff from her rear boosters and her hand was brushing against her target. A quick magnetization of her glove and she was there. This chunk of metal was thicker and when she saw that her target was directly on the other side she realized that she was going to have to crawl over the side. The move had been clumsy, making her drift away from the panel at an awkward angle, and she had instinctively overcompensated with her booster, slamming her into the other side of the panel. She was winded but otherwise okay and

“Are you okay, Lopis?” Fred’s voice was tinged with concern. She coughed, flashing him her green light.

“Just peachy,” She replied once she had caught her breath. After another minute, she had pushed herself back up, relieved to be on the side of the metal panel that she needed to be. She slid herself towards the center, pulled herself into a crouch, and pushed off from that position towards the next panel.

It went like this for another five or so jumps, Fred could tell that she was actively trying to use her boosters less and using the magnetic field in her suit to her advantage. She was still moving slower than he would have liked but she was starting to get the hang of maneuvering in this environment.

“You’re doing well, Lopis,” He hit a few buttons on the control panel he had stationed himself at, “I’m going to release a few drones to patrol. Try to avoid detection.” He heard her swear again, he suppressed a grin. “If you get spotted by one, you’re going to be in a firefight with all of them very quickly.”

“Oh joy.” He could feel the sarcasm in her voice.

Veta saw the silvery cylinders come out of hatches in a wall, and used her HUD to tag them. She was going to have to be extremely careful now, she really did not want to have to start shooting this early in the morning, if it was even still morning.

So far, she had managed to avoid the drones, sliding under cover and around panels as they swept past, and relying almost entirely on her physical strength to get from one panel to the next. She was rather proud of herself, despite how motion sick she was becoming from the lack of a definitive up. She swiveled her head, looking around for her next jump target and saw an eight meter gap between the panel she was perched on and her target. A quick glance around and she realized that from here on out, the panels started to get smaller and more spaced out, almost certainly requiring targeted bursts from her thrusters to reach them. She saw her end point in the distance, which almost balanced out her dread of the smaller targets and the drones’ tighter search pattern, with them actually passing through the wreckage rather than circling around it.

“If we’re being totally honest, I feel like this is excessive for a first training session together.” Veta spoke into the comm, trying to by herself some thinking time.

“ This accomplishes two things,” Fred replied, and she flicked her eyes upward for a second before refocusing on her task.

“And what two things would that be?” Veta jumped, using her boosters for 1, 2 seconds, and gliding neatly into the target panel.

“Well, for one, it helps me gauge where you’re at skill wise.”

“And for two?” She could sense his slight hesitation.

“I didn’t know if you were going to want to do this again, so I had to make it count.” In the time it took Fred to respond she had begun to climb over the edge. “If you use a small burst when you’re at the edge of a plate, it’ll start to rotate and you don’t have to keep climbing around them.”

“If I say I’ll train with you again, will you dismiss the drones?” Veta asked, hopeful despite already knowing the answer. “Also, why did you wait to tell me that?” Her booster activated for a brief moment and the panel began to rotate.

“You know I will not.” He paused for a moment, watching her trying to jump off of the now slowly moving panel and slip, before taking off using solely boosters and crashing into the next panel hands first. “And I didn’t tell you because it means you have to move faster so the momentum of the plates doesn’t affect your jump trajectories.” She got her feet under herself again and glanced up.

“No kidding.” She deadpanned. She went to slide over the panel only to flatten against the panel as one of the drones swept by. Her hand twitched towards the battle rifle she had placed on the mount in between her shoulder blades.

“No, not yet.” Fred whispered, his body leaned forward in anticipation, a green light flashed in his helmet and the battle rifle remained in place. Her head was tilted back and tracked from her left side to her right as she followed the drone’s path on the other side of the panel she was positioned against. 

“Thanks,” She murmured into the comm as it passed and he smiled, flashing a green light back at her. She grabbed the edge, started it rotating down and released, gliding forward towards to the next panel. She was so close to the end now, with no shots fired, and he decided she had done well enough to warrant him dismissing the drones. After pausing to shut down the panel, he made his way down to the platform to wait for her.

Veta popped her head up over the last panel, realizing that she no longer would detect the drones on her HUD. Her eyes focused in on the silvery blue armor, standing tall and stoic in front of the door to the air lock. She climbed up onto the edge of the panel and pushed off, using her momentum to reorient herself for a feet first landing and prepped to magnetize them. She landed squarely, brushed off her small jolt forward, and stood up in one smooth movement.

“How’d I do?” In response, he raised two fingers to his visor and drew a Spartan smile. She grinned at him, remembered her visor was still polarized and rolled her eyes at herself. “We’re done for tonight, yeah?”

“We still have to depressurize, but yes.” He opened the outer door for the air lock and they stepped inside. Depressurizing was a slow process, like with scuba diving, they had to be returned to normal pressure gradually to prevent health complications.

As she felt gravity take a hold on her limbs again, she realized how motion sick she really was and clenched up. “You might want to demagnetize your boots.” Fred said from her side, either oblivious or giving her a minute to gather herself.

“Does it ever get easier?”She asked after a minute of quiet.

“Hm?” The noise had just enough of an absent minded air to it that if she felt any better she would’ve asked him what he was thinking.

“The feeling of motion sickness, does it ever get better?” He mulled over her question for a second.

“Over time, you get used to it,” The airlock doors slid open, releasing them back into the locker room. He paused just out of the doors to fish something out of a tactical case on his hip and produced a small container. “For now, try these.” He tossed them to her as she sat down on the bench. She caught the package out of surprise. She removed her helmet, absentmindedly ran a hand through her hair, studying the package before opening it.

“Are these the crackers from the mess?” She asked as she bit into one.

“Yes, they’ll help settle your stomach.” He watched as she pulled an elastic band from her own tactical pouch and pulled her hair up off of her neck. She popped the rest of the cracker into her mouth before tying it off.

“I wonder if there’s still time to grab breakfast before training.” She began glancing around. “We still have to stop by the armor bay to get these taken off.” She gestured to her SPI armor plates, still looking at the walls. “Is there even a clock in here?” She turned her head back towards him, biting into another cracker. “What time is it?” Fred glanced at his HUD before removing his helmet and tucking it under his arm.

“We have plenty of time,” He said casually, meeting her gaze and watching her gaze harden.

“How much time is plenty of time?” The look he gave her made her immediately suspicious, “Lieutenant, what time is it?”

“0300.” Something in his tone suggested he found this information quite funny.“ _0300 in the morning?_ ”

“There is only one 0300 ma’am.” He had a small grin on his face and he watched a slew of emotions cross her face. She seemed to take the time to regain her composure before she spoke again.

“You know what?” She started, pausing to finish the last cracker in the pack. He watched her carefully as she grabbed her helmet and stood up. “I don’t even want to know what time you woke me for this.” She began walking out of the room. He stood there for a moment, processing her reaction, before jogging to catch up with her.

“Where are you headed now?”

“To the armory, to be taken out of this hell suit.” She said it determination, her brow set. She stopped walking, turning to him and meeting his gaze. “And then, I’m going back to bed, because it is too early for whatever this is.” She gestured vaguely before continuing towards the armor bay. She turned, seeing him standing there watching her walk away. “You coming or not?” They smiled.

“Yes, Inspector.”

As Veta lay awake in her bunk, listening to Mark snore, she swore quietly. There was no way she was going to fall back asleep now.


End file.
